Boston Red Sox trade Clay Buchholz to the Phillies

The Boston Red Sox have traded righthanded starting pitcher Clay Buchholz to the Philadelphia Phillies, per multiple reports on Twitter. The BoSox are reportedly getting 23 year old second baseman Josh Tobias, a 2015 10th round pick who spent last season in A ball.

Buchholz, 32, is under contract for $13.5 million for 2017, after the Red Sox picked up his club option for next season. With the acquisition of Chris Sale, Buchholz became superfluous, and so the team had reportedly been shopping him for a while.

I thought that the Rangers might possibly have some interest in Buchholz, and if you recall, almost a decade ago there were rumors that the Rangers really wanted Buchholz when there were ongoing trade talks with Boston about a catcher for pitcher swap. Texas had Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Max Ramirez and Taylor Teagarden, and the BoSox had Michael Bowden, Daniel Bard and Clay Buchholz, and the thinking was that some deal would come together. Of course, it never did.

Philly, meanwhile, appears to be repeating what they did with Jeremy Hellickson in 2016 -- pick up a guy who can provide them with some innings, and who they are hoping will bounce back and have a solid year, allowing them to flip him at the deadline or, as they did with Hellickson, make him a qualifying offer after the season. Of course, Hellickson accepted the qualifying offer, which I think was not the Phillies’ desired outcome there.

Buchholz put up a 4.78 ERA and a 5.06 FIP in 139.1 IP last year. He’s tantalized with really good stuff over the years -- he even finished 6th in the Cy Young balloting in 2010, when he had a 17-7 record and a 2.33 ERA -- but hasn’t been able to put things together consistently, or stay healthy.